Instead of Three Wishes by Megan Whalen Turner Page B

picture.
    Olga took a last sip from her teacup and placed it on the seat of a nearby chair. One arm she wrapped around my waist. The other she lifted behind her head and pulled the pins from her hair. As her hair dropped, its smooth waves brushed across my bare arm.
    â€œLook at the picture,” said Olga. “What do you see?”
    I looked, and I saw that each of the tiny figures in the painting was moving. The thin black boats crossed slowly from one side of the canal to the other. The larger boats drew closer or farther away. Crowds of people who were no more than scraps of color passed over the bridges, and on the waterfront more crowds hurried or dawdled or paused in conversation. As I watched, the picture grew clearer and clearer until I could make out individual faces and see the words printedon the prows of nearby boats.
    â€œCan you see? Can you see?” whispered Olga, her voice strained with hope.
    â€œThey’re moving,” I whispered in turn. “Everyone is moving.”
    â€œAh,” Olga sighed in relief. “Then it is not too soon.” I dragged my eyes away from the picture and looked at her instead. “It takes time for people to begin to see,” Olga said. “Some never see. Those are the ones that take their boats out to sea and are wrecked because the skies looked clear to them and they did not believe a weathercaster’s warnings. But even those who might believe an old weathercaster don’t see all at once. So there are ways to teach them to open their eyes. Your puzzles that are always new, the riddles and the word games, have all shown you a new way to see. But it takes time, and I did not think you had seen enough to understand my picture.”
    â€œYou’re magic.”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œYou do cast spells for the people on the island.”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œWow.”
    Olga smiled.
    â€œI thought when you said that something was hidden in the picture, it was like one of those drawings with fifteen things hidden in it that you were supposed to find.”
    â€œNo,” said Olga. “What I am seeking is more carefully hidden than that. Somewhere in thepicture is a place that was not in Venice when Mister Canaletto painted it. In that place is the thing that I have lost. But I cannot get to it, even now.”
    â€œWhy can’t you?”
    â€œLook carefully. The frame is very small, and I am very stout. And see what lies across the bottom of the frame? Water. Even if I could squeeze through the frame, I would probably drown. If it is my only hope, I will eventually risk it, but I thought that you might help me. If you could.”
    â€œHow?”
    â€œYou can fit through the frame. You can swim.”
    I still had my teacup in one hand. I took a sip from it and thought before I answered. “Okay.”
    â€œGood girl,” said Olga, and wrapped me in both arms and squeezed until I almost dropped my tea. “Good, good girl.”
    â€œExcuse me, lady.” The cabdriver interrupted Aunt Charlotte’s story. We were stopped at a red light behind a long line of other cars. “There’s some construction down there near the museum. You mind if I take you the long way, up Independence Avenue and back?”
    â€œOh,” said Aunt Charlotte, “whatever you think best will be fine.”
    I hunched forward on the seat until she began again.
    Olga described the precious thing I was to look for in the picture. A fur coat seemed a strangething for Olga to have sought all these years. Olga gave careful instructions. She thought that if I found the coat, I could take it without anyone to stop me, but if I ever was frightened, I should come back.
    â€œYou are more important,” she assured me, “than a coat.”
    When I was ready, Olga began to sing. I reached out for the lower edge of the picture frame, and it was as steady and as firm as a stone banister. I hooked one foot over its edge.